I haven’t seen many posts about social audio influencer marketing on Clubhouse yet, but I’m sure they are being prepared as we speak. I’ll be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon.
I have been in the influencer marketing space for a long time, and I’m always looking for ways to innovate, find new influencers, analyze their performance and conversations and determine real influence. Most of my experience has been working on B2B/Tech and healthcare brands, although I have worked with a few CPG companies in my experience with brands like Tejava and Idaho Spuds, to name a few.
With all the hype about Clubhouse, I’ve been thinking about how this new social audio platform will change how marketers work with influencers. I believe it will give birth to a new type of influencer. It will also expose some influencers who rely solely on sharing other people’s content and flooding their tweets with hashtags.
Here are three ways that Clubhouse is changing the influencer landscape and what brands should expect from working with them if they do.
Clubhouse Influencers Are Creators of Community
In Clubhouse, there are no takes. No “do-overs” or post-production editing. No “in-app” link-sharing or hashtags (well, at least not yet). It’s a conversation. And whether a participant or a moderator, being able to read the room, solicit feedback, interject when needed, and cultivate others to speak is a critical skill.
In the early days of social media, community managers were the epitome of connecting brands to customers. And today’s influencer must have a similar skill —connect people to other people, spread ideas, and do so verbally and on the fly.
Creators of the community are something that cannot be learned overnight. It takes time to understand not just a platform but the behavior of the users, how they interact with each other, and the norms of the app. Each platform is different, and a recent Clubhouse analytics study proves that.
The Gift of Gab
Some people call this storytelling, and that’s certainly part of it. The gift of gab is about influence and persuasion. It’s about being able to articulate a point or argument effectively.
Please don’t confuse this with being a bullshitter. Most early adopters of technology and social media users generally have high BS detectors.
Someone with the gift of gab can articulate very complex ideas so anyone can understand them. With social audio platforms, this is an essential skill because the media is audio which means you cannot use visuals to present a point.
Multi-Channel Influence
The days of hiring an Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat influencer are ending. It is not a scalable, long-term solution, and it’s not smart. Here’s why.
Whenever new platforms emerge, there’s typically a flood of new users who desperately try and grow their followers and be as influential as possible. They jump from one platform to the next, hoping to be coined the next “insert social network” influencer. I see this already happening on Clubhouse and other social audio platforms.
Most of the time, this type of influencer has very little substance or domain expertise. The only advantage they have is being an early adopter of new platforms and growth hacking.
When brands want to build influencer marketing programs, they must find topical-based influencers with multi-channel influence. This simply means they should be active and participate in more than one channel.
Watch Out for the Snake-oil
The rush to Clubhouse influence is well on its way. If you don’t have access to influencer data or research, I suggest doing a quick Google search on The Clubhouse user that you are interested in partnering with. While qualitative, it is the first step in separating authentic influencers from Clubhouse perpetrators.
Social audio is just one medium. And while it’s hot right now, marketers must look at all channels before launching a social audio influencer marketing program as a part of their B2B content marketing strategy.
Social audio platforms like clubhouse and Twitter spaces are one of many channels marketers can use to influence behavior.
I hope this data was helpful and relevant to you. If you’re interested, please see what’s trending on Clubhouse. For more analysis of audiences, topics, and traditional media, please subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos are added.